


Trick or Treat

by osprey_archer



Category: Psych
Genre: Crossdressing, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-30
Updated: 2014-10-30
Packaged: 2018-02-23 06:15:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2537231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gus should have known that Shawn would find a way to duck out of his promise to be the parrot to Gus's pirate. After all, the precinct Halloween party is the perfect venue for a brilliant big reveal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trick or Treat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [entwashian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/entwashian/gifts).



Looking dapper (if he did say so himself) in his pirate captain costume, Gus peered into the Santa Barbara police department Halloween party. He looked left. He looked right. Then he smoothed the skirts of his burgundy velveteen coat and got ready to stroll into the party. 

Then he stopped and looked up. Just in case. But Shawn wasn’t on the ceiling, either. 

Gus had intended to stroll into the party with his antique silver-handled rapier swinging at one side and his pet parrot (Shawn in a parrot costume) on the other. But McNab had confiscated the rapier, (“I can’t let you take a deadly weapon into the precinct,” McNab said, adjusting the mustache of his Luigi costume apologetically. “Sorry!” As if Gus would ever risk tarnishing his sword hilt by stabbing someone), and Shawn…

Well. Gus should never have believed Shawn’s promise to dress up as a parrot. Shawn had never willingly played second fiddle to anyone in his life. It had all been a blind for Shawn’s, quote, “big surprise! I just had a breakthrough on the Miranda Moffat case, and I’ve come up with the perfect reveal. Gus, are you choking? You’re making a funny sound.” 

“Where am I supposed to get another parrot twenty minutes before the party?” Gus demanded. 

“I’ll probably be late! Save me some of those pumpkin-shaped cookies!” Shawn said, and hung up. 

But now, tipping his rakishly feathered hat at the ghosts, vampires, and sexy nurses of the Santa Barbara police department as he strolled toward the refreshment table, Gus thought that Shawn’s failure to appear was a blessing in disguise. Gus couldn’t have been half this dapper with Shawn flapping along beside him, shedding feathers and squawking “Awk! Polly want a cracker!” The pretty new parking enforcement officer in the sexy skeleton suit was definitely giving him the eye. No, wait, she was blinking a false eyelash out of her eye. 

“Gus! I love your coat!” cried Juliet. Her braided pigtails, tied with fat green bows, bounced against the embroidered bodice of her dirndl as she hurried over to him. “Where’s Shawn?”

“He’s putting the finishing touches on his costume,” Gus said, and hoped that this was true. 

“Still? Usually he’s here before the party even begins to steal all the snacks,” Juliet said.

“Shawn is a little neurotic about Halloween,” Gus said. “One year, he set his cardboard robot costume on fire when he added too many strings of Christmas lights.” Gus frowned at the memory. Shawn moped for weeks after missing the Santa Barbara Halloween parade. “We still have that costume in a closet in Psych. Once I caught Shawn instructing it to go out and build him a robot army.” 

Juliet frowned. Gus decided he ought to change the subject. “How about those refreshments?” he said, steering Juliet toward a steaming cauldron that sat on a table in the corner. 

Chief Vick stirred the cauldron, her only concession to the Halloween spirit a battered, broad-brimmed witch’s hat that she wore over her normal clothes. Gus’s supersniffer detected apple cider, cinnamon, nutmeg, and maybe a few too many cloves. 

As they approached the cauldron, the chief lifted her head and gave a surprisingly realistic cackle. Both Gus and Juliet stopped a few feet short of the table, and the chief said in her normal brisk voice, “One cup of cider each. Detective O’Hara, have you seen Detective Lassiter?” 

Juliet sighed. “I think he’s going over the Miranda Moffat case file again.”

“He’s not going to find a new lead in the case just by staring at the paperwork,” Chief Vick replied. Then she loosed another ear-piercing cackle as the vice squad approached the table. Gus and Juliet hastened away with their cider.

“Shawn said he had a breakthrough on the Moffat case,” Gus told Juliet. 

Juliet’s brow creased. “Maybe we should go look for them…”

“Not until we’ve looked at the refreshments,” Gus said. He wasn’t going to let Shawn ruin the Halloween party twice over, by ducking out of his parrot obligations and then making Gus leave early, on top of that.

Mr. Spencer manned the pastry table, presiding over bat-shaped sugar cookies, spider cupcakes, and skeleton gingerbread men with his usual scowl and Hawaiian shirt. “No costume, Henry?” Juliet said, helping herself to a cupcake topped with a marshmallow ghost. 

“I’m dressed up as a grumpy old man,” said Mr. Spencer. 

“Very convincing,” Gus said, and took a bite of a gingerbread skull. 

Mr. Spencer looked pleased. He moved aside a plate of marshmallow ghosts to reveal a pan of brownies studded with rectangular cookies. Each cookie bore a name in icing. _Karen. Buzz. Carlton. Shawn…_

Shawn’s tombstone was twice as big as anyone else’s. 

“Wow, this is...great, Henry,” Juliet said, looking doubtfully down at the headstones. “Maybe a little morbid?” 

“They’re tombstone brownies,” Mr. Spencer said proudly. “I found the recipe on Pinterest.”

“Why does Shawn have the biggest tombstone?” Gus asked, and his voice sounded a little high and squeaky to his ears. It seemed like an evil omen. What if Shawn died because Gus insisted on getting his sugar rush before he and Juliet went looking for him? What if he set another costume on fire? 

“You know my son. He would sulk if his tombstone was the same size as everyone else’s,” Mr. Spencer said. “Where _is_ my son?” he asked, pausing with the plastic knife held at dangerous angle in his hand. 

Gus and Juliet both shook their heads. Mr. Spencer looked displeased as he cut out a brownie with a little cookie tombstone that said _Gus_. Gus jammed the whole tombstone in his mouth at once, just to get rid of it, and started to hack and cough on the dry cookie. Mr. Spencer reached over and pounded him on the back. 

That was when the lights went out. 

It was midafternoon, so the precinct remained fairly light. “Seriously? You couldn’t even close the blinds?” Shawn’s voice demanded. 

“Uh-oh,” Gus said, or tried to say, but it was impossible to speak with a hunk of cookie lodged in his throat. 

“ _Fine_ ,” said Shawn, and he marched out into the middle of the room, carrying a shepherd’s crook and wearing a frilly knee-length pink dress, even frillier white drawers, and lace-trimmed bonnet. “Little Miss Moffat!” he announced, and banged the shepherd’s crook on the tiled floor three times to make sure he had everyone’s attention. 

He already had everyone’s attention. The entire station stared at him. The chief was slowly pouring a stream of cider onto the floor as she gaped. 

Shawn clasped his shepherd’s crook in both hands and minced across the room to perch on an office chair. 

“Little Miss Moffat sat on a toffat,” Shawn began to recite.

“That’s Lassiter’s office chair,” Juliet whispered. “He must be…”

“Eating her curds and whey,” Shawn continued, and mimed eating. Apparently he thought curds and whey was some kind of candy bar. 

“Along came a _spider_ \- ” Shawn said, and paused significantly. 

Nothing happened. 

Shawn cleared his throat and banged his shepherd’s crook on the floor again. “Along came a spider!” he called. 

Lassiter stomped out. The four plush spider legs dangling from the sides of his black body suit wobbled dangerously as he walked. They were not nearly as terrifying as the scowl on his face as he bore down on Shawn. 

“Spencer!” he roared. 

“And sat down beside her, and killed Miss Moffat by biting her because shehadadeathlyspiderallergy!” said Shawn, his recitation running together as Lassiter bore down on him. Shawn leaped up, kicked the chair at Lassiter to slow him down, and dashed away across the precinct. “You promised I could pick the reveal if I cracked the case!” he yelled at Lassiter, diving behind Pippi Longstocking and the Dread Pirate Roberts (who somehow, Gus saw with disgust, had managed to keep his sword). “I let you be the spider, didn’t I? What more do you want?” 

“I want my dignity!” Lassiter shouted, throwing aside Frankenstein in his rush to get at Shawn. 

Shawn dashed toward Gus and Juliet. “Don’t get me involved in this!” Gus objected. 

“Come on. Be a pal!” Shawn said, trying to hide behind Gus as Gus tried to find a position where Shawn couldn’t use him as human shield. Lassiter’s spider leg got caught on a beat cop’s bumblebee wing. 

“Absolutely not. I won’t risk ruining my costume in a brouhaha. This cravat is vintage Brussels lace.” 

Juliet nodded, impressed. Lassiter ripped his spider leg free with a violence that tore the bumblebee wing in two. Shawn dived beneath the table. 

Lassiter stalked up to him. “Where is he?” he growled.

“Who?” said Juliet, all wide-eyed and innocent in her dirndl. 

Gus shrugged. He figured that was as much as Shawn deserved after ducking out of the parrot costume at the last minute. 

Mr. Spencer pointed at the table. Shawn’s crook stuck out from under the tablecloth. 

“Henry!” Juliet protested. 

But when Lassiter threw back the tablecloth, Shawn had disappeared. 

“Where’d he go?” Lassiter asked, staring at the empty floor beneath the table in bafflement. 

Juliet put her arm through Lassiter’s. “Why don’t we get you out of that costume and finish up the paperwork?” Juliet said, and led Lassiter away. His extra stuffed limbs poked her in the side as they walked. 

Almost before they were out of sight, Shawn asked, “Is he gone?” 

Gus lifted the tablecloth again. But he didn’t look at the floor. Rather, he bent down to look at the underside of the table, where Shawn hung spread-eagled. If Lassiter had lifted the tablecloth one inch higher, he would have seen the lacy brim of Shawn’s bonnet. 

“The old underside-of-the-table trick,” Mr. Spencer said proudly. “I knew you would remember.” 

“Thanks, Dad,” Shawn said, not very thankfully, as he climbed out from under the table and dusted off his skirts. 

“You’re lucky he didn’t knock over the refreshment table to get at you,” Gus said. 

Shawn took his brownie from the pan and wedged his whole tombstone into his mouth at once. He started to hack on the dry cookie. “What did you put in these, Dad? Styrofoam?” 

“I just followed the recipe on Pinterest,” Mr. Spencer defended himself. 

Chief Vick let out a blood-curdling cackle. “Happy Halloween, my pretties!”


End file.
